


Yaadasht

by avani



Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: Amnesia, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-23 22:16:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17088740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar, Emperor of Hindustan, wakes to a world he does not recognize--and a wife he does not know.





	Yaadasht

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hellabaloo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellabaloo/gifts).



 “Your Majesty,” wails someone in the distance, and Jalal grits his teeth against irritation. It is too early to rise, his body wails; the sun has only just set. He remembers that, as he remembers the trying events of the day before, all too well--the battle, the battered and bemused face of his enemy, the banishment of Bairam Khan. He can never forget that last, no matter how he tries.

The least that he is owed, he thinks indignantly, is a night’s uninterrupted sleep.

“Please wake,” pleads a new voice--a woman’s, low and worried. The chivalry Khan Baba and Badi Ami have drilled into him since boyhood overcomes him at that, and his eyes open reluctantly. He _hopes_ whatever she wants from him won’t take so very long.

His bedroom nearly overflows with men of the court: that is the first unpleasant discovery that he makes. Jalal knows a handful of them, mostly those ministers delegated to minor tasks. Todar Mal is a welcome exception, as is Chugutai Khan. But the man with Hindu holy marks who stands by Jalal’s bedside is a stranger, as is the weedy teenager in Rajput robes who stands beside him.

Worst of all is the woman who must have spoken. She is beautiful--no surprise, that; women who are not beautiful are rarely brought before the Emperor’s presence, after all--but her garments are made in the Rajput style, and even through her veil, Jalal can make out the terrible relief with which she watches him.

“How,” he asks, “was I brought to Agra in a night’s time? When last I knew, we had camped outside Shimalmarg.”

It seems only a simple observation to him, not at all deserving of the horrified silence it produces. Jalal looks from face to face expectantly; in the end, it is Todar Mal who ventures: “Nearly five years have passed since that day, Your Majesty.”

Five years, Jalal thinks--so ludicrous a claim he might suppose it a jest on Todar Mal’s part, were the man in possession of anything resembling a sense of humor. Enough prevarication, he decides. He needs someone who will tell him the truth.

“Where is Badi Ami? Have her brought to me at once.”

The woman swallows, looks down, and says, very gently:. “Maham Anga is no longer in this world.”

That cannot be--and yet, and yet why would she not be here, when her son needed her the most? Badi Ami dead, and Jalal lost to a sea of strangers without her counsel. Only the knowledge that he is Emperor and must not disgrace himself before his subjects keeps him from weeping like a lost child.

Behind her veil, the woman’s face twitches with sympathy, as though she senses all the weakness he tries desperately to hide. It is all he needs to turn on her instead, grief and fear allowing him to forget all he knows of his manners. “And you, my lady? Who might you be?”

“Jodhaa Bai, Your Majesty,” replies Chugutai Khan, as though this ought to mean anything to Jalal. There are dozens of Rajput princelings, enough to make remembering their many names difficult enough without adding that of their womenfolk.

His inattention does not go unnoticed. Chugutai Khan swallows, looks from the veiled woman and back before he supplies: “The Empress of Hindustan. Your honored wife.”

Jalal gapes. “What?”

*

He is put to bed by the Imperial Physician, his visitors shooed from the room without mercy. A fall from an elephant was apparently to blame for his present condition: one that, to his relief, he had managed to tame before tumbling from its back. Bad enough to be injured like a child; to have met with failure beforehand would be inexcusable. He must rest alone, the physician commands, so that his memories might return the sooner

Banu descends upon him within the week, kissing his forehead and thanking Allah the merciful for his well-being between her tears.

“When I heard what had happened,” she gasps, “I thought at first my ears must have deceived me, that your messenger must have spoken untruth! But then I knew it would never be so, not from you, and I told Sharifuddin we must leave at once.”

Another oddity, that. Jalal has never known Shariffudin to be particularly respectful or obedient to his wife; in fact, if Shariffudin were not a nobleman of some position, Jalal would have been tempted years before to slay him for Banu’s sake. Even now Shariffudin does not look at Banu with any reverence or regard. But somehow, the state of affairs has shifted between them such that Banu leads and Shariffudin follows, sullen but subject to her whims, and Jalal cannot say he is not happy to see it so.

That is why he allows Sharifuddin a private audience and listens patiently to his --clearly insincere--protestations of worry. Jalal affects what he hopes is a suitably stern expression and tries to think of a way he might turn this unpleasant interview into a clever story to share with his wife later, at least until Sharifuddin says:

“...and well I know how Your Majesty has longed for a brother, since Adham--”

Jalal stills. Not another loss to bear, not now. He had assumed--had hoped Adham only stayed away fearing Jalal’s displeasure over Adham’s mismanagement of the siege of Malwa. “What?”

Sharifuddin’s eyes narrow. “You do not know what became of the honorable Adham Khan? Your Majesty, what do you remember?”

“Enough,” Jalal replies stiffly, “to rule as I must,” but the damage is done.

Sharifuddin bends into a bow much too low for sincerity, and exclaims: “Let me advise you, Your Majesty, and speak frankly as others will not. They fear retribution, but I, who live so far away, do not.”

“From whom might you fear retribution for telling truth to your Emperor, to whom your loyalty belongs above all others?”

Sharifuddin clucks his tongue, almost mocking Jalal’s ignorance. “Why, who else might wield such power in Agra, Your Majesty, save the Empress herself?”

Jalal frowns. “Tell me more.”

*

Another week passes before the Imperial Physician reluctantly releases Jalal to his ordinary routine. Jalal is glad for it; there is nothing else to do while convalescing in the bedroom but to ponder carefully over Sharifuddin’s words. He is lying, of course. Jalal is not such a fool as to not have guessed that, in part because Sharifuddin’s story is full of wild allegations including poison, illicit paramours, and the plotted downfall of Maham Anga at the Empress’s hands, but also because Sharifuddin is a snake whose forked tongue could not tell truth if it was plucked from his mouth by Jalal’s own hands.

But within every lie there is a kernel of truth, and impossible to discover what that might be without more evidence. He might ask Banu, but she has been so far away from Agra that there is much she will not know: better not to cause her even more concern, particularly when there is no need for it. All he knows might have been taken from him, but he still has his wits; and that ought to be enough to determine if this marriage of his was merely an unwise alliance or a threat to Imperial power.

His morning prayers are interrupted by music, light and lovely, that makes its way into his very bones. A woman’s voice, singing, so familiar that he is on his feet before he knows it, and follows it halfway to the women’s quarters before he knows his destination. Jalal is not surprised to find its origin his wife’s chambers, but is surprised to find her, apparently alone, before the image of her god.

He does not mean to stay, once the last note fades and whatever mad hold the music has over him fades; but she turns all too soon to find them there, and he cannot flee.

Her face brightens, as though for some reason she assumes this to be a sign that he should be recovered, and Jalal smiles as apologetically as he can to show her the truth of the matter. His wife droops, but rallies; he cannot help but like her a little better for her disappointment and her resignation to reality both. It is so nearly what he feels about the situation himself.

She holds out the plate she carries, heaped high with incense and flowers and flame, and for one panicked moment, Jalal cannot think what she means him to do with it. Should he take it, and place it by the god once more? Or is it meant to be kept out of the hands of outsiders?

His wife notices his expression, and shifts the plate to one hand, circling the air above with the other. She looks at him pointedly, and Jalal nearly sighs with relief. That is easy enough to accomplish, and he thinks at first that he’s done exactly as she wishes--but perhaps not, because she only watches the counter-clockwise circuit of his hand and lets out an unhappy laugh.

Jalal can’t understand how he’s displeased her--he, the Emperor of all India, the man in whose hands the fate of all others rests--but he has no time to reflect on it. She bows to touch his feet, a sign of deference he knows, and he freezes once more. Is he meant to stop her? Or would that merely offend her more?

His wife is watching him, her face faintly amused as though she knows his foolish worries. There is fondness in her expression, as well, Jalal realizes suddenly, and looks away, flushing.

She really is extraordinarily lovely, all the more with her veil pulled back to reveal her face.

He bows his head slightly, the most humility an Emperor can afford. “Forgive me for disturbing your peace,” he says, and her face hardens to hear his formality.

*

Court is yet the same. His advisors line up below his throne in orderly ranks, and offer up suggestions. Now, though, they are treated to an interlude where a man with a lute plucks it and sings with remarkable talent, while the Hindu stranger at his bedside -- Mahesh Das, as he introduces himself discreetly-- stands in a corner and laughs up his sleeve at everyone else, stopping only to make sardonic remarks whenever he sees fit. Where, he wonders, had he found these jewels; and does it matter so long as he is fortunate enough to keep them?

When it comes time for the noon meal, the court adjourns to the east pavillion. Jalal waits for food to be brought, but none arrives; his stomach grumbling, he is about to shout for an answer when a crowd of Rajput women converge on the pavillion, hefting steaming cooking-pots and utensils with them.

He’s never been so much a fool to dismiss all his cooks in the last five years, has he?

“Today is Pir,” Chugutai Khan supplies, noticing his confusion, and Jalal glowers. Of course he is aware that it is Pir; had he not exchanged congratulations on the holiday again and again earlier that morning? His memory is impaired, not non-existent.

“On Pir,” Mahesh Das mutters out of the corner of his mouth, “His Majesty has sworn to eat only that food that is prepared by Her Majesty’s hand.”

Jalal nods, grateful, and attempts to arrange his features into some semblance of calm as his Empress approaches. She watches, careful and cautious, until the dishes are allocated onto every plate, and then she turns to him, beaming, and announces: “The salt is just right.”

Jalal stares blankly. “Ought that not to be expected?” he asks before he thinks better of it, and his wife’s face shutters. Another test, then, that he’d failed.

Beside him, Sharifuddin murmurs: “Shall I eat first? To ensure the safety of Your Majesty’s health?”

A reasonable offer, and yet one that would make his wife’s face turn hard did he allow it. With surprising clarity, the image comes to his mind: her drooping shoulders, her downcast gaze. He cannot fault her: it is a grievous insult to mistrust her in public, and certainly she has done nothing to deserve it. Moreover he allows her at least enough sense to know that, were she possessed of a desire to poison him, a public meal prepared by her hand should be the worst possible occasion to arrange it.

“I believe,” he replies, “that it is my right, as husband, to enjoy my wife’s cooking before all others,” and before anyone can stop him, he takes his first bite.  The food is cooked to perfection, the salt is indeed just right, and Jalal’s reward is her smile.

*

That pleasure must be enough to suit him for some time. Proceedings in Court grow more and more : he hadn’t realized he had passed so many edicts in the last few years. He has allied with a startling majority of the Rajputana, and the pilgrim tax--whatever such a thing might be -- is no more. Merchants casually send him greetings and well wishes, as though they knew him personally, and Mahesh Das makes mild references to escapades in disguise outside the safety of the palace walls.

He has no idea what his past--or is that future?--self must have been thinking. Had he truly had so little respect for what Badi Ami and Bairam Khan had always taught him, or was this, as Sharifuddin hinted, more of his Empress’s influence?

There is only one way he can know for certain. He makes up his mind to seek her out, but is surprised to find that she seeks him out first, visiting him in the gardens, inviting him to the women’s quarters, allowing his presence in the mornings as he listens to her sing. She asks of his thoughts and troubles and the thousand small things that make up a day, demure but determined, as though he were only one more of the birds she coaxes to her hand.

He thinks he might object more if he wasn’t secretly flattered by it. Emperors are feared, and, if fortunate, respected, but hardly ever courted, after all, and as time goes by, Jalal is less offended by the wry cast of his wife’s mouth at every echo of her memory. He spends more and more time in her company, and even seeks her out when she does not find him first. He thinks he might understand what had possessed his past self to keep her at his side, come what may.

That is what he is thinking idly the morning he enters the courtyard to find a white-clad warrior practicing at swordplay alone. His first instinct is to wonder what a stranger is doing within the women’s quarters, but then he notices the lean lines of her body and the familiar eyes visible below her turban.

Well. It seems there is indeed more to his Empress than he guessed. Weeks have passed since anyone has allowed Jalal to so much as look in the direction of a sword, and he’s never been able to refuse a challenge. Neither, it seems, when he raises his sword in invitation, can his Empress; she tilts her head in surprise and grants him a half-smile before she attacks.

She’s better than he expects, and besides he can plead the excuse of recent infirmity. That is the only reason why she manages to back him against a pillar within minutes, before lowering her sword and looking disappointed.

“Usually,” she taunts, “the Emperor manages to put up somewhat more of a fight.”

Jalal lunges, and his wife smothers a laugh before raising her sword to parry. She might, he reflects as he forces her back across the courtyard, go somewhat easier on a man so recently ill; he did not expect to need so much effort to face a woman in combat, nor come so dangerously close to defeat.

His wife’s eyes widen as she looks behind him, as though startled by a servant’s sudden appearance; and Jalal raises his eyebrows at her. Does she think him a child, to be taken in by so simple a trick?

She sighs and turns on her heel, allowing herself more room to navigate. “Of all things to remember,” she says plaintively, “the servants being ordered to leave us be would remain on your mind.”

 _That is something I remember_. Jalal’s mind stumbles to a stop, and so do his feet. He searches his mind frantically, but no other obliging memories arise; his wife, unaware of his confusion, raises her sword to his so that the blades lock and bring them all too close together.

Jalal looks down at her and finds all his thoughts disordered for another reason entirely. Her face shines from exertion, her turban has been long discarded to let her hair flow free, and her breaths are unsteady. Her eyes are wide once more, and very dark.

Jalal’s mouth goes dry, so dry indeed that it is difficult to lower his sword and stammer: “The victory is yours, then.”

“Yes,” replies his wife, equally inanely. She closes her eyes and bites her lip and bends to pick up her turban. “You see I have been practicing,” she says with an ease he knows she must not feel but must affect for his sake, “and someday soon I will defeat you even when you are recovered.”

He does not contradict her, even when she turns to leave. He does not say so much as a word, because he is suddenly certain she has already defeated him and all his defenses thoroughly.

*

He summons Sharifuddin the next day, although his head pounds and aches as it has all night and he knows that to speak with his least loved kinsman can only make it worse.

“You have remained with me too long,” he says, “and your own people must suffer. I cannot keep you from them.”

Sharifuddin scoffs. “They’re only peasants, Your Majesty. What do they compare to you?’

Jalal is reminded, all over again, of how he hates him--and even if his Court must be made up of strangers, so be it, so long as it means he need not be surrounded by Shariffudin and his selfish ilk any longer.

“Be that as it may,” Jalal says, and forces a smile. “Though certainly my sister may stay if she wishes it.”

Sharifuddin is a fool in many ways, but knows when he is defeated; he bows but before Jalal dismisses him, he adds: “And wherever you might go, mind you bear no further false report about Her Majesty the Empress.”

Another bow, and one problem, at least, he is rid of.

Not his headache, though, which continues into the evening, utterly unrelenting. It distracts him from his courtiers, and too late he looks up to realize that the time has come to dismiss them, although he knows nothing of what they’ve decided or what he’s decreed.

No matter, he thinks, Badi Ami will bring the reports to him later--but no, he remembers, there is no Badi Ami left in this world, to know his secrets and help him hide them. He will have to stumble along, as best as he can, and pray he has set nothing into motion he cannot undo. He is lost all over again, and his people will suffer along with him, all because of his own inadequacy. The worst of it is that a part of him wants to ignore this, wants instead to find his wife and offer himself to her anew--not whole, perhaps, or the man she married, but a man determined to be worthy of her nonetheless.

So he thinks until he enters his chambers after dinner, and finds his wife already there, scrolls and papers in her hands as she perches on the side of his bed.

“Abul Fazl obliged me,” she calls to him absently, “as I hear you were lost to your own thoughts all afternoon. Whatever can have disturbed you so?”

Jalal does not answer. Instead he only looks warily from the papers to her. His wife does not even notice, scanning the fine script carefully and mouthing the words to herself with care.

“It must have been important, whatever it was,” she says, and gestures beside her. “Will you listen, then? The scribe’s records say: _Firstly, the Emperor spoke with the blacksmiths’ representative and to them he proclaimed--”_

He is not mistaken, then: his most shameful secret, his inability to force letters to take their rightful shape in his mind, and she not only knows but proves herself worthy of his trust. In that instant he knows, whatever else might be in the world, whatever vials of poison or letters to--her brother, to Sujamal of Amer it had been, not a lover at all--anyone might discover in her trunk, that Jodhaa will have all his faith and fealty so long as he draws breath.

Memory blooms in Jalal’s mind, slow but sure; his headache recedes. He points to a flourish on the paper Jodhaa holds as she continues to work her way through the Persian that she’d learned for his sake: he remembers the curve and color of the calligraphy she had held up proudly for his appraisal.

“My name,” he says, and then, because she will not, not without provocation, adds: “Jalaluddin Mohammad Akbar.”

Jodhaa’s eyes widen. “Five years ago,” she says, very slowly, “you did not know such a thing.”

“I did not,” he replies. “Not then.”

In the window, the sun sinks down so that it catches the mirror opposite and sends the room full of glorious light. Neither the Emperor nor his wife notice this, however; Jodhaa because she has thrown down her records and thrown herself into her husband’s arms, weeping, and Jalal, laughing in relief, because he must catch her.

“I remember that,” he says, because he can, adding when he leans forward to kiss her, “and _this_ , too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Maya/weaslayy, beta extraordinaire. For hellabaloo, whose prompt for amnesia fic was too good to pass up: I hope you enjoy this!


End file.
